Batch vs. Queue: an API Smackdown

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The Batch and Queue APIs are a little-known treasure trove of functionality inside Drupal. Many developers have heard about these tangentially but are a little fuzzy on the details and when to use them. In this lucid introduction, you'll learn what these APIs are for as well as when to batch and when to queue. We'll start with the Batch API and cover everything from simple nonprogressive batch processing to progressive batches with and without JavaScript. And then there's the new Queue API. Drupal 7 contains a default MySQL-based implementation, a high-performance MemoryQueue, and the ability to plug in external queue systems like beanstalkd. You'll learn how to create and process queues, how to manage timeouts and how to do verbose debugging.

The goal of this session is to explain how these APIs work using clear language and illustrations.

Who should attend: This presentation is aimed at those who did not spent weeks writing Java queues in a computer science curriculum; if you know what the word "idempotent" means, you don't need to attend this session.